The Dragon Slayer
by Zombie Cat Scientist
Summary: Sometimes pain goes both ways. When Hiccup runs off with Toothless, the Red Death attacks, and Stoick dies, it's up to Astrid to save Berk and kill the Queen. Because actions have consequences, and it's ignorant to think you're the only one who ever feels outcast. Dark, gorey fic. Maybe HiccupxAstrid, but it won't be sunshine. Chief!Astrid. Includes real Viking military strategy.
1. facing death

**The Dragon Slayer**

 _note: ahhh great. x_x fanfic ate this chapter by accident. here's a replacement, I think I re-covered everything. sorry guys, that'll teach me to back up._

 _ content: **blood, gore**. _

_shipping: _ possible Hiccup x Astrid, cast your votes. _  
_

 _.xxxx._

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 _. xxxx.  
_

Despair.

For a moment, Astrid struggles to feel anything but horror, knowing in her heart that she is going to die, but knowing in her head that there might just be the smallest chance to live if she gets her act together _right now_. Her limbs refuse to properly move. The menace of this monstrosity before them is immense. What hope do they possibly have?

Stoick charges, leading a desperate beserker charge to try and give the other fleeing vikings a chance to live, to perhaps boost morale and rally them all. It is perhaps only fitting that to such a beast, he is squashed under its foot casually like a mere bug, his guts a bloody print on the landscape.

For a moment, she wonders how they all got into this, but it isn't really a mystery.

Hiccup. He'd always been soft hearted. It was her favorite thing about him actually, she'd even found it kind of cute, not that she'd admit it out loud. It made sense that he would take pity on a dragon of all things. The boy was always so privileged, so lucky without even knowing it.

In an odd way it wasn't really surprising that the boy who had as his biggest worry not getting the girl (not that she was anyone's to get, or wanted to be gotten) and not getting the village to like him (after he destroyed half of it in yet another experiment that received a mere scolding as punishment) would run off with a friend. Honestly, she at least would have accepted him if he just stopped trying so hard to be something he was not. Heck, with his blood ties he could apprentice under any craft he wanted, _had_ gotten to apprentice under the craft he wanted with his blacksmith work. Being a warrior might not be fully optional (although with the way Stoick told him to stay inside every single time rather than encouraging it, she suspected it in fact was), but it didn't have to be what he threw himself into, with such disastrous results every time. Even if he hadn't gotten a dragon, if he'd truly gotten sick of it here he might have been able to just take a boat and sail off elsewhere.

Astrid wasn't so lucky as Hiccup.

It wasn't just that Hiccup, unlike her, never had to worry about starving or going cold as the Chief's son, never had to worry about picking up scattered food in the cold hoping there would be a bite left for her - sorry, him - to eat or hastily rebuilding hoping the cold wouldn't give him frostbite, unable to sleep in the snow for fear of passing away in the night. It was the Viking way for the strong to take tribute from the weak, so she didn't begrudge that too deeply. Her family had been in favor once, fairly high ranking even, but death and the Flightmare had seen to destroying that. Her uncle had raised her alone and taught her to fight, but the Flightmare had destroyed him and the last shreds of her family's reputation.

Her Uncle had given her her mother's axe. The same axe that had failed to protect her mother. The same axe that would have to protect her now.

Vikings were running, giving in to the despair she herself fought so deeply against.

No, it wasn't all that which made her unlucky. It was that, unlike Hiccup, she had a crazy Chief who'd decided it was a bright idea to follow a dragon into the nest and take on this **t** **hing.** Now they were all paying for it, and unlike him, she didn't have a convenient flying friend to rescue her.

Fighting her shock, she charges. "Svynfylking, you cowards! Svynfylking!" she orders, the only thing she can think of that might save them. Bizarrely, beyond all hope, some begin to rally around her. No Viking liked to be called a coward, and if they were all going to die here, it might as well be in battle fighting for glory rather than cowering. "Gather your spears and stab at its feet so it can't step on you!"

A favourite tactic of Vikings was the svynfylking, basically a wedge shaped formation designed to penetrate and disrupt an opposing formation. This comprised Axe or Swordsmen in the first rank like herself, then spearmen/halbardiers and archers. Berk didn't really have archers anymore, not after a few bad accidents in the early days had taken the best from them.

As an axeman, she was glad to risk her life on the front lines. Even if the beserker charge that usually went before these sorts of attacks had failed.

Her attack would simply have to suffice on its own.

For the first time, she actually found herself wishing she was Hiccup, before dismissing it as cowardice. Hiccup had abandoned them, and if a part of her could understand why, well, she couldn't afford to think on that now.

She would be proud to die for Berk. She just hoped it didn't come to that, hoped that their shields could survive even a single one of the terrible beast's blasts.

"CHARGE!"

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* * *

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 _end notes : originally inspired by all those Hiccup runs away fics, and Drago having a dragon army: meaning Hiccup isn't the only one who can deal with dragons, so why in every single fic does no one else ever have a moment to shine? Maybe Hiccup would be happier not being a Viking, honestly. People aren't all obligated to be friends with one another. And if Hiccup is happy elsewhere, someone else would have to deal with the horrible potential aftermath._

 _ **Your vote** on if Hiccup comes back / romances / reconciles._


	2. new chief

**The Dragon Slayer**

pairing: _none for the foreseeable future, although I'm still open for votes. I'm really glad you lot are cool with no romance. Because that might be reallyyyy hard to do, honestly, especially with what I do to poor Astrid here. If Hiccup's just into her for being the prettiest girl... welp..._

 _content notes: Extreme gore, some swears, you've been warned. Also, this is now officially AU - alternate universe. See end notes on that._

* * *

Astrid climbs the beast's hide. Below her, Viking's jab with spears into the monster's feet and belly, and around her, Vikings climb up. The large scales and knobby hide make for surprisingly good purchase for agile human hands. The animal, for it _is_ an animal as far as she can tell, isn't keen on stepping on human porcupines no more than an elephant would be.

It is not with sheerest deep horror that she watches Vikings die. No. It is with numb shock, that she sees shields heated and eaten away by fire all too easily, and Vikings bowled over and eviscerated with lazy movements of those powerful limbs. Morale is low, only bolstered by the slight glee at realizing, yes, with spears aimed at the feet they _can_ prevent at least one form of death the nightmare, this living Death would visit upon them, and that to their shields this dragon fire is (almost) like any other.

It's insanity when the most comforting thought you can muster is _'well, at least its breath is not that of a Night Fury_ '.

She climbs, past both her despair and the dragon's neck. It starts to take notice of her now. It shakes and roars and tries to look at her with its eyes that manage to look both beady and small on it and absolutely massive at the same time. Astrid offers a bitter smile, the last thing it shall ever see.

And then she strikes. No, not strikes, so much as **digs, straight through its eyes.** Hacking with her axe is fun, but it isn't all she carries. She stabs a knife into it for better purchase so it can't knock her off, and worms her way in through those huge eyes, pushing, re-stabbing for newer purchase, until the eye flops free and she hacks with abandon.

It's screaming now, with a bloody dislocated eye, and its own attempts to claw at the source of its pain hit its own eye, making it scream even worse. With such distraction, it couldn't defend itself from the Vikings below, who seized on the opportunity to fire on its belly. Someone even managed to chop off a finger. If she weren't so numb right now, Astrid would feel sympathy for it. But she can't afford a heart to feel pain right now, and she's fixated in her head on her work. Methodical, sawing, hacking, stabbing, covered so thick in deep in blood that no longer is it pure red anymore but brownish black flecked red that she swallows the vile stuff.

She can't decide which she hates more, choking on coppery blood or choking on sulfurous fumes. Somewhere in her head she registers also the salty taste of tears. She doesn't know who's tears it is, hers or the dragons.

It doesn't really matter.

One or both of them is dead. One last hack. She's splitting its skull, getting to its brain now.

There is a horrible feeling of falling. She wonders if all the blood and spongy hacked flesh will dull the fall at all.

And then, inconceivably, for she couldn't believe it, couldn't even think it -

 ** _it was over._**

 ** _._**

* * *

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

She wakes. She cries and shakes, and lunges for her axe on the make-shift table next to her, frantic and needing it for whatever enemies she had to face next.

"Astrid, Astrid, calm down, it's over!" a voice cries, hands held up, placating, and slowly she lowers her weapon, realizing it was only Gobber. A grieving, blooded Gobber who bizarrely had managed to avoid losing any more limbs. She hasn't lost any either, but softly touching a hand up, she learns that doesn't mean she hasn't been _maimed._ An eye for an eye, it seemed. Half of her face is burned. She wonders how she couldn't have felt it or noticed before: it burns so badly now.

She will never be 'pretty' again.

In some way, that is a relief. She has never wanted to be the pretty face, the one everyone wants to marry not because she's powerful or the best warrior but because compared to Ruffnut (or Tuffnut, they looked almost identical) she was the only 'lust-worthy' one. Not that she thought Ruffnut looked all that bad, actually, if she straightened up and stopped having such a foolish expression on her face all the time - err, alright, that was strange territory to be thinking about, another girl's looks. It hadn't crossed her mind before and made her wonder, could girls even be attracted to other girls?

 _My mind is rambling,_ she inwardly curses herself, and tries to focus. Gobber is talking. People need her. She was far from the worst off.

"-dragon attacks, thank goodness. They all seem to have been scared away by your killing the big one."

Your killing. Not theirs. Hers. A small smile makes its way on to her face, but she's horrified to find it slightly crooked, like an involuntary smirk. The burned half isn't moving quite as readily, and it hurts to. She frowns, and its a weird half frown, only making its way to half her face.

"Oh Gods, Astrid," Gobber had not gone into such shock as to lose all sympathy or feeling to the world. "Look at you! I'm so sorry. And Stoick. Who would've thought he'd have gone like that? It should have been me."

"No, Gobber," she reaches out a hand to comfort him, with the arm that hurt less, the one not like she'd just been hitting nonstop with it for an hour. "We need you."

"We needed Stoick more," Gobber argued, eyes tearing up. "We've won, but for what point? Hiccup's gone," _Fuck Hiccup, he ran,_ she thought, not feeling forgiving right now. "Tuffnut's dead," oh Gods, poor Ruffnut. "and we have so, so many injured. It's only with your quick thinking we didn't all die. That was some strategy, by the way," he compliments, trying to find one bright light in all this darkness. "I've never seen a more natural born leader."

Then he looks at her with such sheer hope in his eyes, it drowns her. _Make this horror all go away, make this mess right,_ that hope says, but she doesn't see how she can possibly, how anyone could.

"Alright," she gulps, agreeing against her better judgment, and strolls forward. She scans the aftermath of the carnage, the wounded, the broken weapons, the dead body and the fetid dragon corpse they dragged her from, just feeling glad she can still stand. People stop what they are doing to stare at her, to whisper under their breath. _Dragon slayer._ "Salvage the boats, make what repairs we can, and let's go home. We'll make as many trips as we need to, even if we only manage to build one boat. EVERYONE is going home, no body will be left behind!" she yells, and to her astonishment, there are actual cheers.

Snotlout struts forward, a cocky grin on his face, maybe a little shakier than usual from everything that had happened. "Yeah babe! And with me as chief, there'll be a bigger celebration than anyone has ever seen before in all of Berk!"

Astrid whirls, with more rage, energy and fury than she knew she could muster right now. This blustering idiot was not taking credit for her victory. "YOU! You are NOT chief, not NOW! I killed the dragon, I took over from Stoick when no one else would, I am getting us off this hole of Hel's, _I AM ACTING AS CHIEF RIGHT NOW. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH IT? BRING IT UP WITH THE ELDER WHEN WE GET HOME!_ Or do you want to duel me, here and now?"

The confidence completely vanishes off his face. She realizes inwardly she must look more horror than beauty right now, burned and covered head to toe in sticky, smelly blood, gore and dragon brains. With so many more hideously wounded, there had been no time for someone to spend washing her off. Holding her axe, the woman who had slayed a dragon a thousand times her size, she was like something out of a nightmare.

To no surprise, he backs down.

To deep surprise, then he smiles and lifts up her hand in victory. Snotlout does have a good side, deep within him. "CHIEF ASTRID!" he shouts.

Astrid can't believe it. She tries not to cry. _Snotlout?_ He recognizes her accomplishment? After she'd mouthed off to him, the boy next in line for Chief?

Then it became even more amazing.

"CHIEF ASTRID!" the remaining warriors one by one begin to roar, probably eager for morale, any morale that they would even accept her. They couldn't really want her, could they?

"I present to you, Astrid, the Dragon Slayer! No, Astrid, the _Living Red Death_ Slayer, Master of Dragons!" Living Red Death Slayer, really Snotlout? Then again he'd never been so very good with names. But the dragon was clearly more blue than red. She resisted the urge to facepalm.

Looking at those faces with her one good eye, she saw the truth. They didn't see a bloodied, pathetic girl who was struggling even now to keep herself together, to not shed tears and collapse to her knees to weap. They were staring in admiration at their _savior_.

Thor help her.

.

* * *

.

The trek home was quiet, a mixture of grieving and cheerful over victory. Her offensive attack meant a surprising number of boats were still intact, as they'd never given the dragon the opportunity to chase after fleeing Viking into the ships.

The warriors had still been decimated for it.

But they had gotten a new hero and finally, finally defeated the legendary nest and queen.

Thus, mixed feelings were to be expected. But it was not the Viking way to grieve too much, and Snotlout was set on the idea that once they got back, it would be celebration: "The dead are in Valhalla now."

"They've certainly earned it," she agrees with him, rowing, because she's able bodied despite the burns and the pain and she wants to get out of here as much as anyone.

Fishlegs looks at her then, forlorn. "I... don't hit me for this, but I kind of wish it hadn't come to this. That we could have learned to train dragons like Hiccup."

Astrid laughs. "Oh, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Flying dragon pets, setting them against the bad dragons? What a dream. Even if we had dragons, what good would it have done against _t_ _hat_ thing? Face it, realistically we'd have had just as many casualties. Maybe more, it's not like we have lots of dragon flying training. What do you think, that we'd have the little killers wrapped around our finger and perfectly trained on the same day we learn dragons _can_ be trained and Stoick decides to go after the big bad nest? Well, trained or whatever black magic Hiccup used? We'd have fallen off our saddles."

"Yeah, you're right," Fishlegs sighs. "We could've waited to go fight the nest, though."

"Bah, you're assuming that Night Fury wasn't just tricking Hiccup. It's probably eaten him by now," Snotlout dismisses. "It _wanted_ us to attack, so we'd all die. We sure showed it, though! I'd love to see it show its face again! I'd give it a one two and send it scrambling! How dare it eat Hiccup!"

Ruffnut is being very quiet and reserved. Unusually, for her, who would normally be making some goofy comment by now. But then, she's just lost her twin. Half her world is gone. Astrid spares a hand for a moment to clasp her shoulder and give a small squeeze for comfort. She doesn't acknowledge it, but Astrid didn't expect her to. That would be weakness, and no Viking liked showing that.

"I don't think it ate Hiccup, it was an animal he raised, a pet," Astrid says quietly, mostly for the benefit of Fishlegs, who must have been feeling very conflicted. He'd been the closest to Hiccup of all the teens. "But he **chose** his side. He ran away, leaving us to face the nest and the dragon onslaught alone. He valued a dragon more than us. As far as I'm concerned, Hiccup isn't one of us anymore. Hiccup is **not** a Viking. Stoick exiled him, and his words still stand. Hiccup is no longer Stoick's heir," she made it very clear. "and not eligible to be Chief anymore, even if he does come back and repent. I can't take back a dying man's last will." ' _No son of mine',_ Stoick had said. She couldn't undo that.

And Astrid certainly wasn't about to welcome Hiccup back as Chief. No one here was, not even those most sympathetic to Hiccup like Fishlegs and Gobber. "Frankly? In my eyes? Hiccup is a traitor," she spat, "and he didn't _want_ to be here. Good riddance."

The nightmares of Stoick's death, of the countless screams, of the burning agony in her face (will it ever go away?) would haunt her for years to come. Her burned eye would likely never regain its vision, and she would forever be half-blind. But for a moment, just a moment, when they reach home and everyone cheers to see them, home looking as sweet, green and sound as ever, she doesn't think of that.

She thinks of how peaceful the future looks now, and a lopsided smile makes it to her face.

.

.

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* * *

 **notes:**

Thank you all. I was pleasantly surprised by the response (I was not sure this fandom was active for anything other than Hiccup fic and thought I'd get like maybe one review... although some reviewers are clearly still here for Hiccup). I've been kind of review phobic lately too ironically... anyway, to try and answer several concerns brought up by multiple reviewers (or sometimes just one, but meh):

 _* Drago actually raised the dragon from a baby._

Okay, wow, that makes a lot of sense, I didn't know that - where in the movies is that mentioned? So, no plot hole after all then. Still very minor, doesn't really impact the plot of this in any way. I'm still surprised there isn't a single other fic like this.

* _A fanfic without Hiccup in it wouldn't be a fanfic cuz you couldn't plot it long enough._

Okay... one, who said fanfics have to be long? Are one-shots or two-shots not fanfics anymore? I can give this an ending without making this super long.

Heck, it could be fun to end it here and just let you leave the results to your imaginations / your own fanfics. Secondly, the whole premise of this fic is that someone else _other than Hiccup_ can do something interesting. There is a whole set of other characters: Drago, Valka, Mildew (who would probably hate a female chief), all those dragons encountered in the TV series that needed to be dealt with in some way, Alvin and the Outcasts, Dagur and the Beserkers, and if you go with the books, there are Bertha and her Bog Burglar tribe, and the Romans. A Viking Roman conflict could _be a lot_ of fun. Although it would, historically, have to be the Holy Roman Empire, as that's the only one that makes a lick of sense, but whatever, this has fire breathing dragons in it no one said it has to make sense.

* _No one likes it when people end fanfics because they don't get reviews. / Don't worry about reviews._

Fair. I probably won't end this fanfic too early unless I get hit by the perfectionism bug (where I feel nothing I write will satisfy anyone. it happens a lot and I get all review phobic when it does...) or run out of free time or I get bored. I do get bored really, really easily. I could easily re-tread old material by painstakingly going through the old TV series and rewatching it again for every little detail, but I don't want to. No one wants a 'Astrid near identical to Hiccup' story (well, okay, some people would read that, but **I** don't want that story). Right now the perfectionism bug is a lot more likely to kill this fic than anything else. It's stymied my other fics.

* _Reconcile them eventually / don't romance them._

This seems to be the main vote so far, besides antagonist Hiccup.

* _Make Hiccup an antagonist / without the Red Death_ _you will lack a suitable antagonist for your story, make Hiccup an antagonist_

Okay, as a reminder: antagonists other than Hiccup exist (Drago, Alvin, Dagur), not all stories have a single Big Bad human antagonist or need one. But it is a very interesting idea. Would make reconciling even harder, hmm, but definitely a fun twist on the usual. Definitely likely.

* _Love your story and hiccup should go back and when the villagers try to capture him he brats them all up and a epic speech_

Well, thank you assassin for your review... but, um, I think if he 'brats them all up' or tries to make a speech to people still grieving over his dead father, that will definitely put him in antagonist territory. Still, it would be kind of funny to see how usual Hiccup returns fic behavior may not necessarily make him look like a good guy! Although I always get a lot of shit when I parody people. x_x Sometimes it just isn't worth it.

* _Snotlout would hate her as Chief_

I have a somewhat more sympathetic view of Snotlout, as may have been noticed. Sure, he may whine and complain, but he did eventually accept Hiccup and he never actually seemed to have a problem fighting alongside female Vikings, and he's always admired Astrid. Plus, in the books we have Chieftess Bertha and the Bog Burglars, so the nearby tribes may not be as sexist as the rest of the world. It makes a lot of sense: dragons don't care what gender you are when they burn your house down. Even in medieval kingdoms/patriarchal societies, women are allowed to defend their castle. That would extend to greater freedom if your 'castle' is attacked every day by fire monsters.

 **Timeline / on OCS:**

I'm leaning to putting this, historically, around the year 1000ish, without much realism / exactness. This means Holy Roman Empire, this means outside of Berk there are Viking Kings trying to conquer England, Viking Kings trying to shove Christianity down throats of other Vikings for political reasons, this means that the Viking Era and Chief Era is actually drawing to a close now and Berk and their neighborhood are just isolated as fuck, Drago has a larger context (he isn't the first or only wanna-be Viking King), etc.

This means, not original characters, but historical semi-mythical characters who will be basically treated as OCs. I know some people hate OCs. _I don't care as long as they aren't Mary Sues_. If reading mentions about a heavily fictionalized St. Brice's Day Massacre, King Olaf Tryggvason fighting for Norway in Battle of Svolder against King Olof Skotkonung/Eriksonn and King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, Erik the Victorious of Sweden attacking King Forkbeard, King Aethelred of England murdering Queen Gunhild and getting his butt kicked, Thorkell the Tall leading the mythical Jomsvikings, and so on isn't to your taste, don't worry, it hasn't come into the plot yet and it might never. One of those characters or more might end up getting replaced by a canon character (Drago, to make it actually relevant to the plot) or otherwise butchered for my amusement. They'd likely mostly be background / sources of conflict for Astrid as she realizes the world is a big place and that, without dragons to make it un-appeasing, her little Berk may end up getting conquered by somebody else.

Also, Queen Astrid raiding and conquering everyone would be fucking awesome. If a bit villainous, although when your targets are other conquerors you kind of come off looking sympathetic.

 **To Other Writers:**

There are many, many different ways to take 'Hiccup leaves and everyone has to deal with the darker results / slay or train the dragons themselves'. I would love to see other fic of that! For instance, you could slay the dragon with poison or get it drunk with alcohol (lul) instead. Since the Red Death seems to get lots of its food from Berk, they'd have no problem poisoning the supply once they realized it was going to a single individual queen who was causing all their problems. It doesn't have to be straight up combat, I just went that route here for fun and gore.

You could also go the 'Astrid faces a lot of social prejudice, some dude tries to wrest the title of Chief from her' route. I did not... yet, anyway. It's think it's going to happen eventually.


	3. legacies

**The Dragon Slayer**

 _note : so, fanfic ate one of my chapters and I forgot to backup. x_x if you happened to reread the first chapter and noticed something missing from the quicky replacement that you liked a lot, please tell me.  
_

* * *

 _.~~~._

They arrive home, which was looking, to their joy, perfectly intact and untroubled while they were gone. The mood was a mixture of sorrowful and jubilant.

Astrid wishes to sleep for a week, and soak her burns in Berk's icy water. Unfortunately, she can't. The men who stayed behind to protect the village in case of the worst possible result, the ones who didn't see her slay the beast, are less than pleased that Astrid has been unofficially declared the new Chief.

Snotlout's father is especially furious, and he has support in people like old crabby Mildew. He had hopes for the boy, and Snotlout himself went out of the way to crush them. "We are NOT the Bog Burglers. We have never had a female Chief, we have never had a chief not related to the old Haddock bloodline, and we don't NEED a Chief who's barely graduated out of Dragon Training School! We've known for a long time that Hiccup would never be suitable to be Chief, that it would be you, _his cousin,_ who would have to step into line"

"D-dad..." Snotlout stutters, his normal boisterous personality stripped away in front of his father. He's always been like this that she can remember, terrified of disappointing him. She wasn't sure he even really _wanted_ to lead, though he definitely wanted to impress everyone.

"I'm very proud of what you've accomplished, slaying that thing," his father says, ostensibly to her but while entirely staring at Snotlout, almost as if he thought Snotlout was the one to do the slaying. "But we need a proper Chief."

"I'm not so sure. Look at what happened! The moment Hiccup and Stoick left our lives, the nest is destroyed and our troubles are over! What if the bloodline was cursed?" someone in the gathered crowd shouts.

Astrid is furious. Who by Thor said that, that, that nonsense? She turns her one good eye to look upon Fishleg's mother. "Don't you dare say that! Stoick was a good man! It was only because of him that we found the nest at all!" For all Astrid kind of wished they hadn't, but she had to admit, it had been worth it. So what if she lost an eye? It was worth it if it meant Berk was now at peace. "And Hiccup wasn't that bad either. He was just... misled by the dragon."

The woman recoils, but it doesn't stop the crowd from muttering about curses like superstitious sheep.

"Look, there's one way to fix this Chief business. We will have the elder decide," Astrid commanded. She's never thought a lot about it before, but command goes incredibly well with her personality, like she's always been meant to be in charge. Maybe this was fate?

The old woman steps forth, and looks between a trembling Snotlout and Astrid. Without much hesitation, she points at Astrid.

It had never really been a contest. His father had been incredibly blind to ever think otherwise, to not notice the feelings of his own son.

Although... that was an unfortunately common trait in many Viking fathers, Stoick apparently included. Astrid tries not to sigh or chew out Snotlout's father for his stupidity, and look like the proud, victorious and noble leader the crowd wants her to be.

.

.~~~.

.

The partying was wonderful if a bit loud for someone who just wanted to sleep all day. Everyone was so happy for a change, it was amazing. Well, almost everyone. Astrid can't help but notice Gobber and Ruffnut both grieving, Gobber over the two he was closest to leaving his life and Ruffnut over losing her brother.

"Gobber, you're missing an apprentice, aren't you?" Astrid asks slyly.

"Hmm? Y'ah, I am." He looks ready to burst into sobs at the reminder, his eyes quite red and puffy. They still look better than her bad eye. She's given up on getting it back, and taking to wearing a patch. It looks pretty good on her.

"I happen to know a certain someone who enjoys hitting things and needs something to occupy her time to distract her," says Astrid, thinking just as much of how a certain someone needed someone to teach to distract him from other things.

"Ruffnut?" Gobber says with a degree of horror. "She'll destroy my forge. She's a menace! No offense, it's a good thing for a Viking, but not so much for a smith."

"I think you'll find her a lot more quiet and withdrawn," Astrid points him to a moping Ruffnut who, shockingly, hadn't destroyed anything since arriving, and was being so quiet right then that you could have easily overlooked her.

"Well, I'll be. I didn't even notice her over thar!" Gobber exclaims. "Alright, I'll give her a try as my apprentice. But know this, Chief," he winks at her.

"What?"

"If she destroys my forge, I want you to help me fix it up again!" Gobber laughs.

"Deal," says Astrid happily.

.

.~~~.

.

Astrid stares out at the sea, wondering if her parents would be proud of her. If her father would be proud. Then she goes to work.

Chief work is something she has to learn nearly entirely on her own. Gobber helps, having been close enough friends to Stoick to know pretty much how it was all done first hand, but it still isn't the same thing as having an old chief at your side, teaching you throughout your childhood the things you need to get done and how to get everyone organized and moving on time. She finds herself reviewing old writings, the few that managed to survive all the dragons pillaging and burning down all of Berk all the time.

Was she to be a chief of a time of peace, one who didn't need to teach fighting to their descendants and future leaders any more? Somehow, she doubted it. There were always the other tribes to make trouble. And speaking of those, it was their treaties she found herself reviewing the most. She was going to have to speak with them, earn their respect... maybe have Berk start to mingle and trade more with them again.

If fighting was less frequent, though, and the extreme drop off in dragon attacks (not down to nil, but still noticeably subdued, and never in the massive swarms of multiple species like before) suggested it would be so, then they would have to start finding other ways to occupy their time. Trading could help with that need. Learning new skills could help with that.

Looking at old illustrations, she decides the very first thing she wants is for them to relearn archery. It seems like an immensely useful skill.

Going out to the old ring to try practicing with a very old bow, a surviving relic she was half afraid would break on her, she is surprised to see someone else was there.

With the captured dragons everyone had more or less forgotten about. Scratching a big boulder-shaped Gronckle dragon on the snout and feeding a Terrible Terror while cooing.

"Fishlegs?" she exclaims.

Because of course. Once _one person_ got the idea and showed it could be done, why wouldn't someone else be stupid enough to try also?


	4. bone knapper

**The Dragon Slayer**

 _note : if you guys want me to do a little check-up on Hiccup, I could have a temporary POV switch or something. If you do want me to, some ideas on what he'd be thinking would be appreciated. I'm thinking loneliness and nightmares, maybe searching for some human interaction somewhere while hiding Toothless unless doing a Valka is genetic?_

 _After the tenth Hiccup runs away fic, they all sort of blur together in my mind; I don't have the mindset to comprehend the 'comes in, beats everyone up, and gives an epic speech' mindset like some story writers and one commenter here displayed, so if that could be explained, and what exactly the epic speaking tends to be, that would be nice. I suspect they're mentally running a different story from me: I tend for 'Hiccup as mildly socially ostracized' but some writers seem to go for 'Hiccup was physically beaten'. I just can't see Stoick from the movies beating Hiccup, and even Snotlout seems the mostly 'all bark and no bite' type, and I can't see Stoick, Astrid, or Gobber tolerating frequent beatings on someone weak.  
_

 _oh, and I fell back into old habits and wrote this in past tense instead of present tense before I realized what I was doing. sorry!_

 _.xxxxx._

* * *

 _.xxxxx._

"Fishlegs, what are you doing?" Astrid asked.

"Chief!" Fishlegs stumbled backward, then hastily closed the dragon cage of the Gronkle and shoved in the Terrible Terror into a different cage. "Nothing, absolutely nothing! I just thought I'd, uh, see if these little guys were being looked after in all the excitement! Make sure they were getting fed! That's all, hehe!"

"That looked like a lot more than just feeding them. I'm not stupid Fishlegs, I know you were trying to tame them," Astrid's voice grew angry. "Like Hiccup."

"But Astrid! Wouldn't it be, well, cool if we could have dragons as pets? I mean, look at how tame he got that Night Fury around him!"

"Emphasis on around him. We have no idea how an animal that large would react to someone else. Think about how geese raised by people act to intruders who come on their lawn. Heck, think about dogs, which are much, much smaller than dragons, and all the times _they_ have gotten upset and bitten people just because: they were strange, had a strange dog, were near a bitch and another male dog in heat, were touching a toy they considered theirs, were accidentally stepping on their tail, or taking food they wanted away. Imagine a fisherman hauling fish for a living suddenly being surrounded by hungry pet dragons. How in the world would you control them?" Astrid asked, quite seriously. "And what if one goes rabid? It could spread and we could find ourselves with an island full of rabid dragons if every person had one for a pet."

"You know, I don't think dragons are territorial. It's weird, because most predators are, but the different species in the dragon swarms never had any problem stealing food together."

"Two bears may share a kill at a whale carcass without fighting, Fishlegs," Astrid pointed out. "That doesn't make them non-territorial."

"Still. The dragons of Berk have been stealing from us for so many hundreds of years, they've had to lose their fear of us. They've been feasting so long, they haven't needed to be territorial, either. I don't think it'll be a huge problem," Fishlegs argued. "And we do have a method of controlling them if they start to fight or get angry. Remember when Gobber found that eel in the dragon cage, and the dragon cowering from it? Hiccup was using eels to frighten dragons!"

Astrid had to admit, it was actually somewhat persuasive. Still, she felt grumpy. "Alright. Tell you what. You can play with the dragons in the arena, and maybe, just _maybe,_ you can take one of the little ones out on a halter or something. A Terrible Terror shouldn't be able to cause too much trouble if it gets loose, and if it gets angry you can tug it down. And with the dragons in the arena, the only one who can get hurt is yourself. Just don't get yourself killed."

"Oh, thank you Astrid! You won't regret this, Chief!"

"I better not," Astrid folded her arms, staring at him with her one good eye.

"Maybe you would even like to pet one?" Fishlegs suggested mischievously. "You could have one of them as your own pet. Imagine how terrifying a chieftain you would be with a pet dragon! Saying, 'Here I am! I am so powerful and fearless I will keep a fearsome dragon at my side that could gut me with a single swipe!' would really impress the other tribes."

"What? Oh no, no no," Astrid said, as Fishlegs gently pushed her forward to the cages. A familiar blue dragon stared out at her.

"C'mon," Fishlegs grinned at her.

"She is rather pretty," Astrid breathed, admitting reluctantly to herself that she rather liked the spiked one. Ferocious, not especially cute, but good looking in her own way, just like Astrid. She reached in her hand and petted her, against her better judgment. "Stormfly. Her name should be Stormfly."

"See? Was that so hard? So does that mean you'll join me for taming?"

"Wha- no, no! I have much more important things to do, maybe I'll just come in to feed them for you when I have the free time," Astrid pulled away, dismissing what her own heart yearned to do. "I can't imagine the heckling I'd get if I let a dragon loose in the village, or broke my neck trying to fly one." It wasn't like they had dragon saddles. Although, they might not be too difficult to make.

"What's that you're holding?"

"Oh, this?" Astrid commented, hoisting up the bow. "It's a bow. An ancient weapon that hasn't been used in Berk for years, but it can hit from afar, so it's really useful. I was thinking we should make more and start training in it again. I think if we hadn't lost the art of archery back then, we wouldn't have had half as much trouble. What did Gobber say, a downed dragon is a dead dragon? That would have solved a lot of problems like _that,_ " she snapped her fingers. "And we don't know what kinds of troubles we'll be facing soon."

"Huh, that sounds like a great idea! Alright, I'll help you with archery. I'll go tell Snotlout and Ruffnut you want them to train in archery too."

"Thank you, that would be appreciated," Astrid said, before remembering that she could in fact order them to train now. "Tell them that it's, well, an order."

"Yes Chief!" Fishlegs stood straight, then made to leave.

Astrid set up herself some targets and began to practice. It was harder than it looked, and frustrating to miss targets she knew she could reach with her axe, and double frustrating to have old arrows snap on her and become un-useable. She'd have to get them replaced with newer ones. Her mind drifted to the other villages, and what in the world she'd say to them. She couldn't put it off forever, and it would have to be done soon.

.xxx.

* * *

.xxx.

Astrid woke up in the middle of the night to shouts of 'Fire! Dragon attack!', quickly grabbed her axe, and ran outside. "Get buckets!" she ordered. "What's going on? Why is Gobber's hut on fire? There haven't been any dragon attacks since we defeated the queen!"

"It's the Bone Knapper! He's out to get me!" Gobber yelled. "You've pushed me too far this time, you ugly bag of bones!" he waved his hook in the air.

"Bone Knapper? I'm pretty sure Stoick said that doesn't exist," said Astrid skeptically.

"What's a Bone Knapper?" asked Ruffnut, carting around water.

"A disgusting beast that wears stolen bones it takes from victims!" Gobber said melodramatically. "Now it is after me again, just like all those years ago!"

"Ooh!" said Fishlegs. "They say the Bone Knapper will let nothing stop it from trying to find the perfect bone to complete its suit of armor! Awesome!"

"Hmm," said Astrid, trying to think of how to save the hut. How were they going to reach up on the top? Aha! "Hold on a minute. Fishlegs!" she ordered him over. "What if we launched water buckets over the top?"

"I think that could be done!" said Fishlegs enthusiastically. "We could also, umm..." his voice dropped to a whisper. " _have a dragon drop it over._ "

"We'll try launching buckets first, then maybe something else if we must," she said firmly, but not angry, mostly just double checking that no one had reacted like they'd overheard Fishlegs.

"Ooh," said Ruffnut, acting like her old self. "I like the idea of launching things! Let me!"

"Alright Ruffnut, you can certainly help," Astrid agreed. Then she hauled out a catapult and launched a series of buckets over the hut. The results were a bit haphazard, to say the least, many losing their water before they even reached the hut. It did help a bit, though. Thinking, she got out her bow, fired an arrow with rope, and simply hauled up a bucket over it before giving a yank to spill. "Alright, there we go! Keep the buckets coming!"

"Now, let me tell ya the story of how I met the beastie! I've been running from it my whole life!" said Gobber. "I'll be going to go after it right now!"

"I don't know Gobber, it's late," Astrid yawned. "It can wait until morning."

"No, no! It's a great story!"

"Fine," she said, sighing.

He proceeded to make them all sincerely doubt his sanity. Hammerhead yaks sent by Thor to defend him? Really?

It was no wonder Astrid stopped taking his story of the Bone Knapper seriously. It must have just been a random dragon attack, or so she figured. "I'm going to bed."

.xxx.

* * *

.xxx.

"Gobber's run off to find the dragon!" from Snotlout's mouth was the first thing to greet Astrid when she opened her door in the morning.

"What?" she said with alarm. "Damn it, I told him to wait until morning!"

"Well, it technically is morning," said Snotlout slowly. "And, well, he dragged Ruffnut and his sheep Phil with him!"

"Of course he did, she's his apprentice," Astrid groaned. "We can't lose both our smiths. Alright, let's go after them."

"I saw which way they were going!" said Snotlout proudly. "I'll show you, Astrid!"

After a moment of thought, Astrid commanded: "Gather a small war party. If this really is another dragon we're facing, we don't want to go at it alone. If they make a fuss, ask them how they'd like it if no one is left to make them weapons."

..xxx..

* * *

..xxx..

They managed to track the two down to a ship wreck. "Be careful anchoring down," she ordered. "We don't want to get ship wrecked as well."

She hopped off the boat and marched toward Gobber and Ruffnut, prepared to give them a real talking to. "YOU, I TOLD YOU TO WAIT-!"

A weird squeaking noise greeted them from above, and she stopped in her speech. They looked up to see billowing flames, and a distinctly skeletal dragon. Astrid pulled up her shield and grabbed Ruffnut's hand, dragging her along as she ran back to the boat. "Alright crew! Now! The eels!"

"I can't believe it's real!" said a gobsmacked Snotlout, as he and Fishlegs pushed over a barrel. A load of eels spilled all over the boat. The Bone Knapper stopped short, squeaky hissing. "And it sounds so pathetic! Why is that?"

"It's missing a piece," said Fishlegs thoughtfully, pointing to its chest. "Right there."

"Well, where could the missing piece be?" said Ruffnut, then looked at Gobber, who was looking a bit sheepish while holding his sheep Phil. "What do you think?"

"I think... that we can't just sail away! It's just going to keep hunting me, as it's done since I first took the treasure, and next time we might not have eels! We have to face it now."

Astrid thought about it, sighed, and reluctantly... agreed. "Very well, Gobber. We'll face the beast. Shield wall, with me as the center!" she ordered, leaping from the boat again and splashing down. Her men stepped down side by side next to her, shields raised. _It's a shame we don't all have bows yet,_ she reflected ruefully. "Spears, then throwing axes go!"

They aimed all they could at the beast, but unfortunately... it just flew up above their reach and blew fire at them! In a strange way, the giant 'queen' dragon had been easier, since it had just let the Vikings climb up it and whack at it rather than flying away to found a new nest and cause them endless new troubles; imagine if it had _bred and made even more nests_. It hadn't been very inclined to fly, although it probably would have if they'd flown out on dragons to it if it could get those wings working at that size. Although this could just be her trying to keep Stoick's dignity, she thought they did the right thing _not_ to fly at it with dragons they'd only tamed that very day, especially as they'd have difficulty doing anything but get swallowed by it when other dragons were so small. There were so many ways that could have gone wrong.

"Chief, what do we do?" one of her men asked.

Astrid grumbled, then, feeling a little vindictive, got a nasty idea. "Alright, let's use Gobber as bait."

"Whaaat?" Gobber yelped.

"You got us into this mess. Go out, lure it to you, and we'll charge it."

"Ah, if I lose another limb because of this, I'm blaming you, just so you know," Gobber grumbled and walked out. "Alright beastie, come and get me, you ugly sack of bones!"

It couldn't resist the bait. It soared straight down at him. Astrid and her men charged, but it began to lift off and away... holding Gobber's pants.

"Aahh!" Gobber yelled, jabbing it with a hook repeatedly. The skeletal beast just winced, and thrashed its skull, threatening to rip his pants in two.

"Gobber, cut your pants off! Then you'll be free!"

"Whaaat?" Gobber exclaimed, alarmed. "No way!"

The dragon gave him another violent shake.

"I'll never, ever - oh well, fine," Gobber said, and cut the band holding his pants on. He immediately fell through the air, and Fishlegs awkwardly made to catch him, but mostly succeeded in getting sprawled on the ground too.

The dragon stopped attacking. In fact, it seemed marvelously happy, tail even wagging as it landed and hopped up and down with Gobber's pants.

"Is it just me, or did that dragon want your pants?" Ruffnut said.

"Well, I've had a few lads want in my pants in my younger days, but never want the pants themselves," Gobber commented, sounding a bit confused. "Ah, my treasure! The dragon wants my belt buckle!" Indeed, the Bone Knapper was pawing at it, growing increasingly frustrated at its inability to pry it loose from the pants.

Cautiously, Astrid tread forward, head low, hands up. "Easy, dragon, easy," but to her surprise, it mostly seemed to ignore her. It wasn't interested in attacking at all.

With a quick slice, she freed the bone from the pants and tossed it to the dragon, which happily tucked it in to its skeleton 'armor'. Immediately, it gave a happy, tremendous roar, then to her horror, before it fully dawned it wasn't an attack, **nuzzled** her. "Right, uh, you're welcome?" she said slowly, backing away. It knocked her over and gave her a disgusting lick. Her men became quite confused and muttered to themselves. They had, after all, come to slay this dragon, not befriend it.

"Aww, Astrid, I think you made a friend," said Gobber. Then it bounded over to Gobber and nuzzled him too. "Aww, why, you're just a big sweetie aren't ya! Ya never wanted to kill me at all!"

Astrid headed back to the boat. "Alright, mission accomplished. The dragon shouldn't chase Gobber any more. Next mission! Head home and get the poor man some new pants!"

"Yes sir, uh, ma'am, Chief," said Snotlout, who piled the eels back into their barrel. Everyone headed back on board and started to sail off toward Berk. The dragon tried to, too. "Uhh, is it just me, or is the dragon trying to follow us home?"

"Shoo!" said Astrid. It licked her, and gave another roar. "Ughhh."

They were half-way to Berk when suddenly, more roars greeted them. The Bone Knapper rose into the air and flew off to meet fellow Bone Knappers. "Finally!" exclaimed Astrid. "I thought we'd never be rid of it."

"That bone must have been the one responsible for its mating call!" Fishlegs said excitedly.

"Aww, did it have to go?" muttered Ruffnut. "I thought it was kind of cool."

"I think I miss it trying to kill me already," said Gobber.

Astrid growled, in a good impression of a dragon.

"Astrid will be our new dragon! Won't you Astrid?" teased Ruffnut. She was probably the only one who didn't give two figs that she was Chief; she still wasn't scared of Astrid. In fact, she'd love it if Astrid beat her up, it would just be rewarding her. So Astrid refrained from punching the crazy girl.

"No, Ruffnut. We're better off without the dragon. I mean, what would we feed it?" she dismissed, trying to ignore the part of her that was disappointed the dragon flew away too. She wanted to follow tradition and respect Stoick's last wishes. He wouldn't have wanted her to train dragons, would he?

"But Astrid," Fishlegs pointed out. "We feed dragons all the time."

"Well, it probably ate bones or something," she excused. "Or men."

"Ooh, could we have fed Snotlout to it?" said Ruffnut. Inwardly, Astrid was deeply relieved. Ruffnut was back to her old, rambunctious, obnoxious self, even without her twin there to fuel her urges for mayhem.

.xxx.

* * *

..xxxxx...

note: so, my explanation, because humans aren't stupid, for why dragons haven't been universally tamed is that Berk dragons are special. They've evolved to be less fearful of humans scavenge off them like dogs did when they started to break from wolves.

Also, off topic, but it occurs to me that having the 'queen' dragon be evil, but the 'king' dragon be both bigger, stronger, and good, is kind of full of unfortunate implications (that all could have been fixed by simply saying it was a good, stronger kind of queen bee dragon, which would be just as true: I didn't see any indications that anyone actually knew what genders those dragons were, and since they seem to be different species, those species would have both male and female individuals :P). not to mention having the one foreign, african-heritage (Black) looking guy be evil. I don't think the second movie is my favorite, by a long shot, although I do like Valka and Drago's basic concept is intriguing. I wouldn't have mentioned this, but some idiot was talking about how the King 'has a harem of Queens'... no, seriously, just no. Do not want.


	5. always loot the dragon hoard

**The Dragon Slayer**

note:thanks for all the reviews~ content note: corpses, cannibalism.

 _always loot the dragon's hoard._

.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.

Astrid trained, and as she did so, she began to realize something kind of horrifying. It wasn't just that her aim with the bow was off. Her aim with her axe was a bit off, as well. Losing one eye, it seemed, had set her training back and made it more difficult to aim than before.

"Astrid, calm down, no one but you even noticed anything!" Fishlegs exclaimed. "So it's a bit off from before, your aim is still the best of anyone here!"

"Still not good enough," she growled. "And get back to practicing your archery."

"Yes Chief."

She had to admit, she was pretty proud of Berk and how it was doing. She really couldn't take credit, she felt; it was the villagers who had managed such rapid repairs, it was the warriors who had taken up well to the bow (relatively, anyway, many of them could now hit a mock dragon target, which was all they needed) despite the fact they had to completely relearn the art, as no one on Berk knew archery anymore. There was some grumbling about how, with the marked decrease in dragon appearances, there wasn't much need for this sort of thing any more, but Astrid didn't tolerate it. Hadn't the Bone Knapper showed there could in fact be other incidents? Not to mention, there was always the other villages. They needed to be prepared.

Taking a break from her practice, she went to overlook the ships and their repairs, the buildings, and the state of the blacksmith's work. The rows of weapons, and a few shields, got her thinking.

"Gobber and Ruffnut. I've noticed that armor for our Vikings is distinctly lacking. Our old writings and art show Viking Chiefs with a lot more metal armor than today. The weapons seem to be in tip top shape, so why not get started on rectifying that? I think that it would definitely help with any future conflicts if our Vikings had more cover, and not just shields. Perhaps if you'd had metal covering your limbs, you wouldn't have lost so many of them." She was glad Gobber wasn't sensitive about his limb loss, since she liked being blunt about topics.

"Awesome! I want spike armor! Something that just screams 'DOOM' to all my enemies!" said Ruffnut, picking up some weapons and carrying them into another room.

"I'm very glad to see you taking your duties as Chief seriously, Astrid. There were a lot of mutters that you wouldn't be able to handle it at your young age," Gobber said, most likely to simply let her know of the local rumors rather than out of any sympathy with them. This was the first she'd heard of such talk, although it did not surprise her. She clenched her fist and mentally promised to do her very best - no, to be one of the greatest chiefs Berk had ever seen. "But there are several problems with that, and I'll tell you why. Firstly, the old chiefs weren't stupid. They realized that it was more important to get every Viking armed, than to have every Viking armored." Made sense. "Secondly, armor can actually be a problem with some of the nastier beasts. You don't want melted metal or even just very hot metal on you, oh no. A shield can be easily tossed away, but chain mail you are wearing cannot. It also slows you down. So it's very much a trade off, and some Chiefs simply opted for leather armor instead. Thirdly, armor can be very intensive and time consuming to make and repair. With constant attacks, we simply didn't have the time to make a lot of the stuff, and we were often more concerned with simply repairing weapons in time for the next attack to care about higher quality armor."

"That all does make a lot of sense," Astrid admitted. She would certainly hate to have boiling melted steel dribbling down her body. That would have been more horrible than the simple burns she'd received, maybe. Although if a dragon with breath that hot hit you, you were probably dead well before the steel started to melt. Humans cooked at much lower temperatures than iron melted. "But we're in a time of relative peace right now, and armor can still be useful against certain dragons or against other human opponents. I'd still like you to make a few pieces, as a test. If it ends up making a huge difference in a future battle, then we can make even more. Of course, bows and arrows take first priority, but our wood workers can do that."

"Hmm," said Gobber. "Well, that's a problem, because the last issue I wanted to bring up is that we simply don't have enough metal. We barely had enough for all our weapons!"

"I should have thought of that." Astrid inwardly cursed herself, feeling like a fool. Of course they weren't made of limitless iron or even bronze and copper. "I'm sorry, Gobber. I'll see what I can do about procuring more iron."

"Be careful, Astrid. If the other chiefs get hold that yer trying to stock pile iron, and with no more dragons to fight, they'll think you're planning an attack!"

"Right." She was glad he'd pointed that out, as her mind had been distracted by what they could trade for it with their meager resources. Pelts, wool, fish, dragon hide? "Say, how much do you think the head of that giant dragon would fetch?"

"Ooh!" Ruffnut poked her head in. "Don't sell it! I want to keep its skull as a BED! Wouldn't that be awesome?" ...yeah, no. That sounded very uncomfortable, actually.

"Probably quite a bit! It's quite a trophy. Wouldn't fancy being the one trying to haul its skull on board a ship, though," Gobber responded.

"I think I'll send out an expedition to go get it, and see what we can make or sell from it," mused Astrid aloud. "We were so distracted with trying to survive we didn't think about further investigating the lair."

"Be careful. For all we know, there could still be many dragons hanging out at the nest, dragons who've had a long term to learn to hold a grudge against Vikings," Gobber warned.

"Sounds awesome! I'll go!" Ruffnut volunteered, then glanced at Gobber. "Uh, if I'm not needed?"

"I"m sure he can do without you for a bit," Astrid said, glad for the company of another female fighter. "Let's go."

"Sweet!" Ruffnut pumped her fist up, then offered it to Astrid. Astrid, after a moment, 'punched' her fist at the other's fist, which seemed to please Ruffnut. Ruffnut was quite strange. The two ran to the ships, and prepared to sail.

 _(ASCII ship art)_

. . . . . . . . \\. . . . .\ . . . . . .\\.

. . . . . . .)_ _ _ ) )_ _ _) . )_ _ _) \\.  
. . . . . .)_ _ _ _) )_ _ _ _) )_ _ _ _ _)\\.

.-.\ ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .../-.

... ^^^^...^^^^...^^^...^^...  
... ^^^^...^^^... ... ...

.=======.

 _(you have no idea how evil it was trying to get that ship to display...)_

 _.======._

The dragon's lair turned out to be quite the wreck. Old ship parts and various scraps and weapons not picked up by the vikings from the last battle littered the island, as well as, more disgustingly, body parts and blood spatter. There was a foul odor emanating from the massive dragon corpse that lay on the ground. It was now even uglier than Astrid remembered - she had not exactly stuck around to admire her handiwork last time, and maggots crawling out of an empty eye socket were hardly appealing.

Worse, however, were the various scavengers. Odor was not exactly a threat. Astrid immediately went into a defensive stance and ordered her party to bunch together as she spotted not one, but a whole host of dragons, particularly Bone Knappers, scavenging off the corpse. Disgusting - did they really eat their own kind? But she supposed if you only ate meat, and needed bones to mate, you couldn't afford to be too finicky and wait for the flies to pick off all the meat from the bones for you or another less easily disgusted by rot dragon would beat you to it.

"And here I'd been thinking we wouldn't get any chances to kill a Bone Knapper after the last one flew away," said Ruffnut, pleased and eager.

"Maybe they'll be so frightened by Astrid's and my reputations they'll just run away!" Snotlout laughed, slightly nervous. He had never actually killed a dragon, certainly ones not so huge.

"I don't think dragons know of reputations, Snotlout," Astrid destroyed his hopes. "But perhaps they'll scare away and we won't have to fight them for it. Follow my orders, keep close formation, hold up your shields, and ready to fire! Now, march!" Astrid moved her formation forward, weapons and shields held high and threateningly.

The Bone Knappers, as well as a few other, less fearsome dragon species such as the little Terrible Terrors, looked up with maws full of rancid meat and scavenged broken off hunks of bone. The small Terrors flew off, but the Bone Knappers roared and hovered protectively over their meal. "Looks like we have a fight!" crowed Ruffnut.

"Fire the arrows!" Astrid ordered, eager to test out their new fighting capabilities. Obediently, which rather surprised her because Ruffnut and Snotlout had always been rather rambunctious, her comrades fired the first volley as a warning.

The dragons, well wary at this point of anything Berk Vikings might toss at them, made to evade, but one got hit in the wing and crashed down. It scampered off to retreat, howling in pain. Another dragon seeing this got nervous and flew off, deciding to wait some ways in the distance and, like a true scavenger, wait until the fiercer predators were done with the carcass before coming back in to pick at it. The others, however, didn't seem quite ready to give up.

A large Bone Knapper bore down and fired a nasty blast of flame.

"Raise shields!" Astrid ordered, and thanked the gods that seemed to take the worst of it. "Begin approach to the carcass and begin dumping eels! We'll see how they like eating it then!"

They weathered several blasts, and one Viking took a bad burn to the arm from not raising his shield quickly enough, but at a quick march they quickly reached the carcass. The vikings in their center, who they'd been protecting, proceeded to dump the eel barrels.

"Back off slightly! Let them see the eels!" They strategically retreated a short distance, and let the dragons, somewhat appeased by the retreat, inspect the carcass.

They really didn't like the eels there, and made quite a few agitated roars. One somewhat bigger than the others launched straight at the Vikings, aiming perhaps to get rid of or punish the nuisances who had defiled his or her meal. Astrid overestimated the strength of her line and tried to hold stance, but they were easily bowled over by the angry dragon, who tried to eviscerate Snotlout, who screamed and rammed his shield into its mouth, but not before suffering some fairly bloody scratches.

Astrid charged in and struck with her axe at its neck, and managed to crack some of the bone it wore, but was frustrated to see she hadn't really done anything to hurt it. The beast snarled and spat out the shield, and turned toward her with anger in its eyes. Ruffnut and Fishlegs struck it from behind, and it whirled, spitting flame. Fishlegs tried to shove an eel at it, but it was too angry at this point to care and simply struck it away, tipping the boy over. Then it opened its mouth wide.

 _Oh no you don't!_ Astrid thought, charging up its back and wrestling with the head. She daringly risked losing fingers to slide an eel into its mouth, and it gagged horribly, coughing and spewing smoke. Then it flew into the air, with her still on it. _Oh Odin!_

It flew by the side of the mountain, and she leaped off and grabbed on to a crevice and hauled herself up, then fired her arrows. It seems it and the other dragons had at that point taken enough, because it dodged from her arrows and fled.

Panting, Astrid sat back to rest for a moment, then glanced down into the cave inside the mountain. "Woah," she said aloud. "You have to see this!" she yelled to her comrades below. There was a whole cavern full of stuff in there, mostly skeletons, but also many things that had been stolen by dragons and lost over the years. There were weapons embedded in dragon skeletons from dragons who had crawled in here to die... and armored vikings who had been brought in as a snack, or who perhaps were from the fabled expeditions to look for the nest who never came back.

There was even a little bit of gold, hoarded by some dragon attracted to shiny stuff. She spotted a coin glinting next to a sleeping Deadly Nadder. "I don't think we'll have to worry about metal shortages anymore!" Astrid laughed happily. "Someone come up here and see how much we can loot! Just be careful of the sleeping dragons and not to fall down!" There were quite a few of them here, and Astrid's mood dimmed a bit. She didn't like the idea of being in an enclosed space with so many, but maybe they would be alright if they kept their distance.

All in all, it was a pretty good day, and a pretty good haul.


	6. but watch out for thieves

**but watch out for thieves**

Note: _I noticed a few typos in the last chap, but I feel a little leery of editing after ff ate one of my chapters once. Maybe someday. Also, I hope I didn't make anyone hate Hiccup! I just wanted to present him as more human, as an often oblivious teen like most teens, rather than super savior like he usually is!_

.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.

"When are you going to get married, young lady?" Mildew berated her, following her around. "It's bad enough to have a female for a chief, but an unmarried one? You have no heirs for your line! You should marry a man and let him take over chiefly duties for you!" It was sad that this was an actual opinion held by actual people. "Perhaps I could be of service?" Ew.

"I'm not giving up being chief, Mildew. And I'll marry whoever by Thor I like, thank you!" Astrid could really throttle him, but settled for socking him in the face instead with her fist when he refused to stop following her.

Unfortunately, he did have at least a small point. She had no heir or spouse. If she went goodbye, Berk would be sent into chaos, although privately she suspected Snotlout would end up back into the running, his behavior of supporting her and also not being related to her would definitely put his chances in severe doubt. It would be an open free for all in the worst case scenario, every Viking trying to take a try at it. The worst thing was, she had no idea who she should appoint as her emergency heir.

And she definitely didn't know anyone she was all that inclined to marry. When she contacted the other tribes for renewals of treaties and the like, she'd have to have a discreet look around. She was feeling confident enough in her understanding of Berk and their old treaties to do this now, so it was definitely something that would happen quite soon. They had resumed normal trading with them, so there were definitely bound to be rumors of Astrid's deed floating around all the islands. Speaking of that - the giant dragon head had sold pretty well; there was talk that a foreign king of all things would be interested in it! With that success, they'd started to sell some of the other massive bones and dragon scale hide too, although quite a few went missing from Bone Knappers up to mischief. As a trophy, Astrid kept some of the hide. Who knew, maybe it would make good armor? Blue was pretty fetching on her, to boot.

Politically, there were good reasons to consider Snotlout if she did marry within Berk, but the thought made her shudder. She had no desire to touch him. In fact, the only boy she'd really had any interest, small as it was, in was -

Well... _him_. No use crying over the past. He was gone now. They'd likely never see him again. And she'd do her absolute best to follow Stoick's last wishes, so even if they did, she wouldn't be left with much choice.

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.~~~~~~~~~.

.

.

The smell of smoke and a loud crashing noise woke her up. Astrid grabbed her axe(1) and rushed outside, and gasped at the devastation.

"The armory! All the metal we just looted!" she yelled in frustration. All that effort, gone for nothing! "What did this?"

"It must have been a dragon," Mildew came up to her side to simper. "Lousy creatures! Perhaps you should go on a hunt for them?"

"Perhaps I should," Astrid said, voice steely. She didn't entirely trust Mildew, and it seemed strange that only one thing should be destroyed and no food taken, but even he didn't have anything to gain from trashing the armory. Holding up her hand, she beckoned. "Organize into a hunting party! We search the island for fire breathing dragons!"

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.~~~~~~.

.

Her hunting efforts mostly resulted in exhaustion. The one Nightmare they'd encountered had flown off without much of a fight, easily terrified by the large party. What had caused it? Tired, she retired to the beach side with her friends, or at least she hoped they were still her friends even though she was chief now, occasionally dipping her feet into the cool waters for fun.

"Astrid, Astrid, look! It's a love castle! Snotlout Manor, all it needs is a queen!" Snotlout pointed to a rather... sad looking sandcastle he'd built. "I made it for you!"

Astrid turned her head away, and resisted a chuckle when Ruffnut shouted: "I'm storming the castle!" and stomped on it. She was, briefly, strongly reminded of Tuffnut, and was surprised at her melancholy. She had never been a close friend to Tuffnut, yet the thought of his death still stunned something within her, maybe even more deeply than Stoick's death had. Perhaps it was because he was closer to her age, and in some childish part of her mind she had thought him too young to die that way.

But death didn't care how old you were.

With that morbid thought in her mind, she looked at the docks and the deep sea. It was colored beautifully in the sunset, orange, purple, yellow, mirrored from the fading sky against greens and blues on the gentlest of waves and surf. She then frowned. Those approaching dots on the horizon, were those _ships or dragons?_ Scrambling to her feet in spite of her tiredness, she spoke to her favorite clowns: "Hey! Look in the distance, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Those aren't ours, are they?"

"Woah, no, no way!" Ruffnut broke apart from her scuffles with Snotlout. "Is that an invasion?"

"Maybe it's just a trading party?" offered Fishlegs. "I'd think an invasion would have even more ships than that."

"We don't know that those ships are all they have," countered Astrid. "More could be on the way. Let's gather everyone in the village and get them armed, just in case."

"Uh, that might be a problem," said Ruffnut with slow embarrassment. "Y'see, a lot of the villagers were storing their weapons in the armory?"

"...what?" Astrid's voice became far colder than usual. "Who decided this was a bright idea? And why didn't anyone **tell** me?"

"Y-yeah, with the extreme decrease in attacks, they just figured, hey, we don't need them as much anymore! Let's store them somewhere safe for safe keeping where they won't gather rust!"

Grudgingly, she had to admit that explanation made sense. But she still wanted to see Gobber. She ran toward the armory, hoping he could salvage something. There he was hard at work, and brightened to see her.

"Oh, Astrid! You're back! I was hoping to talk with you, but you went off on that dragon huntin' party! With this disaster, we're low on weapons, and I'm worried it could spell disaster if our worst enemy, Alvin the Treacherous attacked us. In our state, he'd happily kill everyone to get his hands on Berk. I really meant to get in touch with you before now, or Ruffnut to get her to help me rebuild, but when I looked I found she ran off with you to join the hunting party!"

Astrid groaned, wishing she'd even known they had a worst enemy. _Mildew, you traitorous son of a troll. You really couldn't stand a female chief that much, could you?_ She grabbed a horn and blew loudly, then darted to outside. "There are strange ships approaching right now!"

People began to poke out from their houses, looking alarmed. Whispers broke out, and there were frightened shouts of "I don't have a weapon! If this is an attack, what can I do?!"

"Calm down, everyone!" Astrid shouted, trying not to panic herself. Was she really prepared to lead for a situation like this? Deep breaths, Astrid. Think tactically, keep cool. "Those without a weapon, try to scrounge for one. Knifes should do. Bows weren't stored at the armory, not being made of metal, so they should be safe! If you have a bow or any sort of weapon, go get it immediately!"

Gobber came to her side, holding a few weapons but not nearly enough. "Here ya all go. Astrid, ya should send the children and elderly to Thor's Beach. There are caves they can hide in."

"Thank you, Gobber," she said with deep gratitude. "Alright, Mulch, Bucket, you heard him! Escort the children and elderly! The rest, get ready and head toward the docks!"

Astrid headed out, the best warriors she could gather at her side, restraining her anger purely for the small hopeful chance that this unannounced party really was a trading or negotiating party from another village, and not a heinous band out to attack.

The moment she heard Gobber growl at the man who stepped down from the first ship to land, that hope evaporated. She also felt uneasy when she realized they were not he only ones with ranged weapons. Many of the armed men on the ships had crossbows. While Berk had for the most part lost their bows, that didn't mean other Vikings on the Barbarous Isles had done the same.

"Alvin the Treacherous," Gobber introduced the man for the younger generation's benefit. "What do ya want here?"

"The Dragon Conqueror," Alvin spat out. "Show her to us, and we'll let you go easy. She's all we want."

His lieutenant at his side looked rather confused. "Sir, I've heard stories that the Dragon Conqueror is ten feet tall, with the strength of a dozen men. I don't see any woman here who fits that description."

Alvin laughed. "I'm sure I can handle her, whatever she looks like. So, where is she?"

Astrid stepped forward, despite the look of alarm on Gobber's face. "She's right here. Now that you've seen me, what do you want with me?"

.

.~~~~~~.

* * *

(1)- it does not make sense to me at all that Astrid wouldn't keep her axe beside her at all times. She's that kinda gal. And I don't see the other young Vikings doing otherwise either. It makes sense to me they'd rush off to go hunt dragons without realizing many of the adults chose to stick their weapons in the armory. They are still young and naive.


End file.
